Cole Cuchna

When it was all said and done, Thomas revealed that the two-year journey to score Tron Legacy was the most difficult creative endeavor the duo had ever undertaken.

He told Dazed, quote, this project is by far the most challenging and complex thing we had ever been involved with.

Coming from our background of making electronic music in a small bedroom and ending up having our music performed by a 90-piece orchestra with some of the best musicians in the world, we are lucky to have had the opportunity to experience some powerful moments artistically over the years,

but recording this orchestra was a very intense experience.

The experience became a truly formative one for the duo now in the 17th year of making music together, showing them the power of collaboration, of working directly with real humans in the same room together.

It was an experience that, symbolically and thematically, picked up exactly where Daft Punk had left off.

As we explored last episode, Human After All, Electroma, and Alive 2007 were three parts of the same thematic arc.

Human After All is a cold mechanical journey that ends with the robots turning back toward humanity, reminding us that the prime time of our lives is always right now.

Electroma tells the story of two robots desperately trying to become human, failing, and ultimately destroying themselves to reclaim the last piece of humanity that they had left, their mortality.

And Alive 2007 brought those ideas together in a live show split cleanly in two, one half robotic, the other half human, culminating in a celebration of the concert itself as a microcosm of what makes us human, coming together, moving in rhythm, joyfully sharing in the fleeting miracle of being alive.

At the same time, if we zoom out from this era and look at Daft Punk's entire career to this point, we can see a larger arc clearly taking shape.

1997's homework was the sound of two humans learning to master their machines.

2001's discovery transformed that relationship into myth.

Humans and technology merging to create the Daft Punk robots.

An optimistic vision of the innovation and possibilities that union could unlock.

But human after all revealed the other side of that equation, what happens when the balance tips too far, when the machine begins to erase the human, leaving us longing for something real.

By this point, the thematic trajectory of their creative output was pretty clear.

Across albums, films, and live performance, Daft Punk had arrived at the same conclusion, a return to humanity.

And so for those paying attention, when it came to their next project, there was really only one way forward.

But how would they actually execute it?